457. Almost all who come into the next life from the world think that hell is the same for everyone and heaven is the same for everyone, when in reality there are unlimited differences and variations in either case. Hell is never exactly the same for one person as for another, nor is heaven — just as there is never one person, spirit, or angel who is exactly the same as another.
When I merely entertained the thought that there could be two people precisely the same or identical, it aroused horror among those in the world of spirits and among the angels of heaven. "All unity is formed out of harmony among many," they said. "The way that the many harmonize determines what kind of unity they have. No monolithic unity lasts, only the unity created by harmony. So every community in the heavens forms a single unit, as do all the communities — or the whole of heaven — taken together. The Lord alone makes this happen, and he does so through love."
One angel calculated only the most general kinds of joy experienced by spirits (in other words, inhabitants of the first heaven) to be around 478. This indicated how countless the less general kinds must be, and how innumerable the specific kinds that make up each general kind. And considering how many kinds there are in that heaven, you can see how unlimited must be the kinds of happiness in the heaven of angelic spirits and how many more yet in the heaven of angels. 1
Footnotes:
1. There is more detail on the three heavens in §459 just below; see also §§684, 1642, and the extended treatment of the subject in Swedenborg's Heaven and Hell 29-40. See also note 1 in §167. [LHC]
